Books That Got Me Through 2024
Image description: a checkerboard pattern featuring eleven books listed below. TEXT in the boxes between books: Books/That/Got/Me/Through/2024.
Reading is as necessary to me as breathing. I can’t imagine life without it. I assume if my eyes fail me, I will be moving to audio books, but for now, even the act of reading is grounding for me.
In 2023, after Charles was laid off, I had to cease my habit of buying a lot of books: physical and digital. I turned to the Ottawa Public Library for books, but was frustrated that I often couldn’t get new poetry and fiction books from fellow writers, especially those I know. I make suggestions to the library to add books but most are turned down.
Instead i ask publishers for copies and hope to place reviews in literary journals. I query journals.
I write reviews in between editing gigs. I only write reviews if I get paid by a journal or if I feel the need to ensure the book gets notice, I will publish here on Amanda Thru the Looking Glass.
In the course of just over a year, I have been learning how to write reviews with the help of great and patient editors. One of the most important pieces of advice I received was from the guidelines from the Malahat Review: don't be afraid to use “I.” That advice made me less intimidated about reviewing books. My reviews are my personal opinions not some objective impersonal prescription for what a book or a genre should be. I'm no genius or expert, just a reader writing to fellow readers about the books that resonate for me.
For the most part, I focus on books by women and non-binary writers, especially those who are queer, disabled and BIPOC. This is part of my attempts to decolonialize my reading practice. As a cis white settler, I find I have been programmed to read almost exclusively from the straight white dude literary canon. If one more dude rabbits on to me about Moby Dick….arggggh.
On my reading list for 2025 is Dionne Brand's new nonfiction essay collection, Salvage, which shows how Black people have been portrayed and erased in Western literature. It's surprising to me but shouldn't be how classic texts praised and read by so many are so full of racism and exclusion of anyone not in the dominant culture. I've received books from Brand's Alchemy imprint and I'm hoping to review them in 2025.
Here are the books that I reviewed and enjoyed in 2024, the books I recommend theses books to all trying to just get thru one fucking moment at a time when the world is a shitebox.
Books
Concetta Principe, Disorder (Gordon Hill Press)
I loved the hybridity of this book, which moves from stanza-based poems to prose poems/essay/memoir. It’s an intense and important read. Review forthcoming.
Chuqiao Yang, the Last to the Party (Gooselane Press)
“ The Last to the Party is a work of extraordinary beauty, pain, and honesty. Yang achieves flight in this poetry collection. It soars.” from my review in Canthius.
Sara Power, Art of Camouflauge (Freehand Books)
I wanted to be friends with all of the protagonists. I loved the way Power explores the behaviour of women, faced with societal expectations regarding motherhood, marriage, career, and how art brings some of them freedom. Review in the Malahat Review Issue 28.
Katy Wimhurst, An Orchid in My Belly Button (forthcoming from Elesewhen Press)
“Misfits–AKA, those who feel unwelcome in an unsustainable, patriarchal society–will find their kindreds in these tales and feel uplifted, something we greatly need at this time.” From my endorsement.
Sneha Madhavan-Reese, Elementary Particles (Brick Books)
I loved the way Madhavan-Reese made science so intimate and wondrous. Review in the Humber Literary Review, Volume 12, Issue 1.
Cristelle Smith, Invisible Lives (University of Calgary Press)
A visceral and personal portrait of single motherhood, poverty, abuse in a hybrid form that successfully renders the violence and upheaval through the blurring of genre boundaries. Review forthcoming.
Jade Wallace, Anomia (Palimpsest Press)
An unputdownable page turner with characters I felt kindred with, especially Slip. A joyous remix of fairy tale and mystery novel. Review in the Temz Review.
Faith Arkorful, The Seventh Town of Ghosts (Penguin-Random House)
A powerful celebration of Blackness and individuality, a close-up look at the effects of anti-Black racism, these poems are brilliant and moving. Review forthcoming.
AJ Dolman, Crazy / Mad (Gordon Hill Press)
Poems that play with language in a brilliant way, addressing social inequalities, these poems are a rallying cry to those who have been erased and harmed. Review forthcoming
Anik See, Cabin Fever (Fish Gotta Swim Editions)
I loved reading this thick novel over the course of several months. It addresses the anxieties of contemporary life, the ongoing pain of grieving the death of loved ones, and the desire to find refuge. Review published in the Temz Review.
Chantal Neveu, you, translated by Erín Moure (Book*Hug)
Long poems are my favourite. I loved the multi-faceted way love is portrayed here, and the way the minimalism of the text serves as an incantatory list. Review forthcoming.
Not pictured
Cheryl Strayed, Wild (Knopf, 2012)
I read this book aloud to Charles over a period of several months while he cooked lunch. It was a book on the “leave a book, take a book” shelves in our building’s mail room. Strayed deals with the end of her marriage and the death of her mother by hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. It’s an arduous undertaking and something I can’t imagine doing, but she makes it through and we rooted for her the entire time.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service (Viking, 2024)
Another book I read to Charles over lunch preparation for a few months. I took it out from the Ottawa Public Library’s online e-book service, CloudLibrary, which has its issues, but we can’t afford to spend money on books, so this wasn’t a bad way to read it. I read it on my phone.
This is a detailed account of Dr Fauci’s medical career from student to administrator, and includes lots of info about AIDS/HIV, Ebola, Zika, and COVID-19, not to mention his experiences working under seven American presidents. He sets the record straight on a number of false stories about him. He also emphasizes the rewards of public service. Both Charles and I admire Dr. Fauci and were interested by his journey and experiences.
, All the Happy Endings (forthcoming from Curious & Kind Press)I had the pleasure of doing a doodle edit and reading this wonderful novellette, a tale of love, mourning, friendship, ghosts and small towns, and queerness in all its glory and delight. It’s going to be a joy to see this book out in the world. I am so grateful to Wake for entrusting me with their book.
Image description: Wake Lloire holds a copy of the doodle edit of All The Happy Endings. The text is in multiple colours and has little doodles of a tea pot and a flying being, a snail and a pigeon. Wake is peeking over the pages and wearing glasses. You can see their blue and pink hair beneath their crotched touque and a red shirt with flowers.
Thank you to authors who create these wonderful works for helping me to turn to literature when I am in need of comfort, distraction, companionship, empathy, and insights and questioning of the senselessness of the world today. Art is a form of resistance. I am interested in reading works that resist patriarchal, capitalist, white supremacist and ableist systems. This is what excites me and galvanizes me, makes me realize there is some joy to be had still in this world.